Warsaw Pact
The Treaty of Friendship, Co-operation, and Mutual Assistance, more commonly known as the Warsaw Pact, is a mutual defense treaty of Eastern European nations aligned with the Soviet Union in World in Conflict. They are not a separate faction in the game, but are a major player in the unfolding of World War III. Overview After the Allied Powers defeated Nazi Germany in World War II, Germany was divided among the Allies. The United States, Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union all agreed to share administrative control of Germany, dividing the country into two nations, West Germany and East Germany, and dividing them amongst the Allies. The Allies gained all of West Germany, while the Soviets controlled East Germany, with Berlin being divided amongst the democratic west and the communist east. After political, social, and military tensions rose between the West and the Soviets over their control in Europe, the United States and Western Europe formed NATO in 1948, allowing for the US-European cooperation in the event of a Soviet invasion. When West Germany joined the union in 1955, the Soviet Union saw this as part of the American threat and formed its own alliance with Eastern Europe. After installing communist governments across most of the eastern half of Europe, the Soviet Union founded the Warsaw Pact on May 14, 1955, establishing the Eastern Bloc of Europe and the rival of NATO. This further division of continental power only increased the tension between the West and the East, and established the parties that would engage each other in the event of World War III. World War III By the year 1989, the economic crisis in the Soviet Union threatened the stability of the Warsaw Pact. If the Pact were to fall, the Soviet Union's influence in Europe would decrease dramatically. Desperate to maintain its influence in Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union attempted to blackmail NATO into providing economic aids or it would attack Western Europe. The United Nations ignored this request. As a result, when the blackmail failed, the Soviet Union followed through with its promise and attacked Europe all along the Iron Curtain, quickly conquering several states, including West Germany. Since then, the Warsaw Pact has been providing its full support to the Soviet Union, and now Yugoslavia and Albania have fallen into the Soviet orbit. With this outbreak, the Warsaw Pact is now at war with its NATO rivals, initiating the global conflict the world had been trying so desperately to prevent. Since the war outbreak, NATO and the United States have been working towards repelling the Soviets and the Pact members back behind the Iron Curtain. At the beginning, thanks to the superior Soviet military strength, the Warsaw Pact maintained a strong hand against NATO. However, with the United States intervening the conflict, the Warsaw Pact has yet to overrun Western Europe, even after some of the American forces returned to the U.S. concurrent with the Soviet invasion of America. Member States The Warsaw Pact membership comprises of the majority of Eastern European nations, mostly Soviet satellite states. Among these member states are: * Soviet Union * Bulgaria * Czechoslovakia * East Germany * Hungary * Poland * Romania Albania was a member state of the Warsaw Pact, but withdrew from the Pact in 1968 after expressing its support for the People's Republic of China. It withdrew on the grounds the Soviet Union had neglected the Albanian economic needs. See also * Category:Organizations